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18 Signs That Life In U.S. Public Schools Is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In U.S. Prisons

By Michael Snyder, on June 1st, 2011

In the United States today, our public schools are not very good at educating our students, but they sure are great training grounds for learning how to live in a Big Brother police state control grid. Sadly, life in many U.S. public schools is now essentially equivalent to life in U.S. prisons. Most parents don’t realize this, but our students have very few rights when they are in school. Our public school students are being watched, tracked, recorded, searched and controlled like never before. Back when I was in high school, it was unheard of for a police officer to come to school, but today our public school students are being handcuffed and arrested in staggering numbers. When I was young we would joke that going to school was like going to prison, but today that is actually true.

The following are 18 signs that life in our public schools is now very similar to life in our prisons….

#1 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”

#2 It came out in court that one school district in Pennsylvania secretly recorded more than 66,000 images of students using webcams that were embedded in school-issued laptops that the students were using at home.

#3 If you can believe it, a “certified TSA official” was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.

#4 A few years ago a class of 3rd grade students at one Kentucky elementary school were searched by a group of teachers after 5 dollars went missing. During the search the students were actually required to remove their shoes and their socks.

#5 At one public school in the Chicago area, children have been banned from bringing their lunches from home. Yes, you read that correctly. Students at that particular school are absolutely prohibited from bringing lunches from home. Instead, it is mandatory that they eat the food that the school cafeteria serves.

#6 The U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending huge amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.

#7 A teenager in suburban Dallas was recently forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using bad language in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.

#8 It is not just high school kids that are being ticketed by police. In Texas the crackdown extends all the way down to elementary school students. In fact, it has been reported that Texas police gave “1,000 tickets” to elementary school kids over a recent six year period.

#9 A few months ago, a 17 year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school. It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.

#11 In early 2010, a 12 year old girl in New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly wrote on her desk.

#12 There are actually some public schools in the United States that are so paranoid that they have actually installed cameras in student bathrooms.

#14 The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place “potential offenders” in specific prevention and education programs.

#15 A group of high school students made national headlines a while back when they revealed that they were ordered by a security guard to stop singing the national anthem during a visit to the Lincoln Memorial.

#16 In some U.S. schools, armed cops accompanied by police dogs actually conduct surprise raids with their guns drawn. In this video, you can actually see police officers aiming their guns at school children as the students are lined up facing the wall.

obviously this person hasn’t stepped into a public school lately. 60% of students bring alcohol or drugs to school each day. most of them sell that stuff to other students during school. sex in the bathrooms, in the lunchroom, in janitor closets, outside. fights erupting daily, weapons, threats, bullying…and these are not even urban schools. how do i know? i used to teach in several schools in CT. its so bad now that each school has a cop on duty to break up the daily problems. my advice to you who wrote this…spend a week in an inner city high school and see if you still believe education can survive without extreme measures.

Steve

Over 99.9% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including the statistic that I just made up right now.

Steve

“…see if you still believe education can survive without extreme measures.”

How can you even think that education exists? Don’t you even understand what you’re doing to these people? Do you know what the “Prussian Model” is?

It is a reaction to growing oppression around the country that creates an environment of rebellion. It’s human nature, unchecked.
Your form of “education” requires extreme measures.

Alicia

Wow, Steve – perhaps you should provide documentation for those extreme statistics. I’m certainly glad my children do not go to that school. Sounds like the children have no respect for authority…but here’s the thing – respect HAS TO BE EARNED and it is a two way street. This is a break down in society, which IMO the author was trying to convey how bad things are becoming. There is something terribly wrong with a society that must resort to the authorities to educate our youth. This article is aimed to educate parents. Parents need to understand that their child’s education is ultimately on the parent…regardless of how good/poor the school or teachers are in regards to performance. I believe this article is trying to get our attention – they NEED TO BE AWARE if they are to bring about change – CHANGE STARTS AT HOME – not the SCHOOL!

Kaylee

Alicia, I agree that change has to start at home, but I disagree on this article’s aim. This article was not aimed at reminding parents about their duties, but at exposing how bad it is getting in schools around our country. That being said, I think we need a serious large scale movement in our country to re-educate parents on their responsibilities and how they can truly impact the world to make a better future for their children. This movement should be led by a non-profit organization, or rather a coalition of non-profits aimed at restoring the values of true liberty and personal responsibility.

Ana

Impact THE WORLD?! Isn’t that a little too far fetched?

How about THE COUNTRY? What does the world have to do with your country’s internal problems? Most other countries in the world have better educational system than yours, you don’t have to worry about giving the right example to the WORLD. It more like should be the other way. Worry about your problems at home, not the world.

YuggY

Education wont survive EVEN with ‘extreme’ measures. Education is done at home, by the parents. What you see in the states is a society that has no care whatsoever for the education of their children. They just delegate it to the schools, and feel offended when it doesn’t work ‘as advertised’. Grow up americans. Take responsibility for what you are doing to your kids. Be an active parent, be an active citizen. Weed, alcohol, sex, language, art and other forms of expression are NOT the issue and kids should be taught about it at HOME. Drugs, violence and rape are the issues and should be socially repressed… that means in schools too, even in kinder gardens – 6yr olds are also citizens. If you get arrested for cheering or making noise, you should change your laws or move to another country. There is a line on what is acceptable behavior and what is not, and it seems from the outside that americans are as extremist as the terrorists they’re so afraid of…

Ana

I agree.

old soldier

Agree wholeheartedly with Justin 200 per cent. I am a substitute teacher AND bus driver, forced to that since no jobs available. The following has happened to me by elementary and middle school students: struck in the abdomen on purpose by a ball, insulted, barred from one school because I wrote some kid up, had library books thrown at me. The list can go on forever. In the schools, there is nothing that can be done to discipline students administratively. The students think it’s funny when they’re suspended from either the bus or the classroom. Recently one school had a near riot because two students got into an argument and it escalated to about a dozen police officers being called in and a school official injured. If there are police in the schools there is a DEFINITE reason for them being there. One being the presence of Pee wee gang members as young as age eight in elementary and middle schools.
Alicia is right, too. Change does start at the home not at the school. More parents need to be involved and become involved in their child’s education. My experience is the parents don’t care, meaning they leave it to the teachers to raise the kids. Last summer in Maryland, a teenager was killed by gang members in his age group. The parents were upset because gangs were at the school. To me, it was their responsibility to educate themselves about gangs in the schools like talking to the school’s school resource officer.
Forgot to mention, I spent eight yrs with College Security at a community college. It was dangerous. Doubly so because the college refused to arm us and we needed to be armed to deal with all the incidents that occurred. Because the local police were afraid of offending the College Administration, no police patrols were conducted on the campus. My supervisor resigned his position in the middle of his shift, because the Administration refused to allow him to have two students arrested. The “students”, forgot to use the right term, “clients” ( little sarcasm here) were out of control.
Lastly, whenever anyone takes issue with police presence in the schools, jog his or her memory with the word “Columbine.”
The normal ratio of school resource officer to students is usually about one to four hundred.He is outnumbered and ,in some cases outgunned.If the economy continues its downward spiral, there won’t be any in the schools and few to respond, since per the articles I’ve read here, police depts are downsizing personnel. Then what???

af

60%??? when’s the last time you stepped into public schools??

SFP

Justin: the easy availability of drugs and alcohol, the sex in the bathrooms, the daily violence, these make up reason #19 that life in US public schools is now essentially equivalent to life in US prisons. Actually, I expected these to constitute reason #1, and am grateful to the author for not limiting his discussion to the obvious. Yet it seems you would make the schools more prison-like in response, when these pathologies are, at least in large part, a response to the awful lives the students are already leading?

william smith

um sir I think your statistic is way off try 15% – 2o% their is no sex in any part of the schools except on very rare occasions very little selling of anything how do I know, Im an 11th grader with 100 + friends good and bad

b

Writing on desks deserves this kind of attention? Come on. No one is discussing drugs and alcohol. That’s in a different category all together. Were talking about minor things that used to be okay to do.

TheDude

90% of all statistics are made up

Alan Foos

Obviously it is you who hasn’t stepped into a classroom, lately. It’s been a few years for me now, but I put in several miles a day stepping in and out of classrooms in a high school for five years. The kids were really superb, but the administrators were out of their gourds. I yanked my kid out of a middle school when his hired bodyguard quit, then was threatened with jail for mental illness when I moved to another town so he could get through high school. Year before last, six kids in the first school committed …suicide out of 165 (20% attempted suicide, yes that’s true, 6 passed on to Hell, these are real, not made up statistics). He was ok in the new school where I also worked, but the daughter of a friend of mine was raped there, mandatory meetings at the admin building featured common banter about forcing preachers to watch porn developed for use in public schools, that’s the sugar lumps that dance in the heads of administrators these days. More more, but why bother, nobody believes a word, the cops would never lift a finger.

Gary

Michael-We had to take our 2 youngest kids out of the church school and send to public school as I could not afford the tuition anymore due to gross underemployment. I was concerned due to everything I hear about the public schools.

I have to report that I am extremely happy with the job they are doing.

I am sure there are some bad ones but ours are great. It saddens me that our dolt governor-walker-wants to cut education so he can give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires? How can people be so dumb as to vote for these rabid right wingers? Almost all of them are directly voting against their own self interests.

I see why the right may get 2-3% of the vote as that is who they represent, but the other % of voters who vote for them?????

Gabby

When budget cuts ensue, it’s always educated that goes first.

http://gambling-strategy-king.blogspot.com/ Strategy King

public schools are such prisions these days, im glad im done. I graduated in 2009 and im never looking back.

Brady

Wow… Really makes me look forward to having kids. Hopegully the entire global economy will collapse and I can teach my kids directly when we’re living off the land. Words of common sense and a very exspensive encyclopedia collection should fill in the gaps. It blows me away how people know that the governments decisions directly affect them. Yet they don’t bother to care. Sometimes i feel like the odd man out for reading all this “doom and gloom” but it’s different if it’s going to directly impact you, your family, your income, way of life, etc. People need to understand that we are about to witness a trial of humanity. Living darwinism, where the weak and ignorant will essentially parish. Strange times are here

Information Addict

Brady, Wikipedia is actually most likely the best encyclopedia in the world that money can’t buy. I highly suggest you begin downloading content there, as I know for certain that many highly acclaimed experts and academia (for example their AIDS entry) regularly contribute content. My electronics professors in tech school actually didn’t require textbooks and referred us to that website instead. Also, many state colleges post their curriculum online, and the classes usually pale to the actual content of the textbooks, which can be purchased online or downloaded illegally through bittorrent or legally, as past editions, through project Gutenberg.

http://www.facebook.com/annathule C Hall

My professors, (if that’s what those Kaplan clowns can be rightfully called) FORBADE me from using Wikipedia! I think that should worry me, ya think? (No, not being sarcastic in my tone, I mean it.) I always thought the way you did – how long could a mistake in facts or sourcing last long on a community based website, where so many information providers were professionals themselves?? I quit there, tho. (And used Wikipedia anyway!!) Read how much of a scam Kaplan was, realized I had been “bum-rushed” myself and told ’em all to go to hell. My kids grew up in pub. schools, but the oldest are 32 and did fine, the youngest, 19, didn’t have quite the trouble, being raised in the country where rednecks still know how to shoot and don’t take it kindly when a kid gets arrested for drawing, or saying, “Jesus”! My son is homeschooling his kids and when we can finally round up the money to get there, I’m going to take that over for their mom. We’ll both do it I guess. This is crazy…

Information Addict

Actually the only way to survive the 100 year old theory actually taught in high school and college academia is to take education into your own hands, which is a lot to ask of a kid. Treat the teachers with the respect they deserve, and take everything with a grain of salt. Realize that this is what the state mandates they teach you, not how reality actually functions, far from it actually. Even nowadays, the textbooks are written by the major publishing companies that tow the line and keep anything that would challenge their paradigm out of plain view – the perfect example is how they credit Thomas Edison with inventing the light bulb, yet don’t even mention Nikola Tesla who invented AC electricity and lit the world fair with Westinghouse. I graduated in 2005 and our school system was so political that they actually arrested a kid for wearing headphones around his neck, completely turned off during class.

Sandy

Brady, you don’t have to hope for economy collapse to take control of your kids’ lives and education. We call it home education and it is a fantastic alternative to institutionalized programs.

Guido

Can you remember a time when school wasn’t considered a prison?

Actually, my school wasn’t so bad. A few years after I left, I drove by and I was surprised to see several layers of fencing around the place. It really looked like a prison then.

Of course, if you send your kids to gov’t schools, they’re going to be treated to the absolute worst in education.

Read John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education. (free online at: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm ) Gatto explains public education was set up to dumb down kids so they’re just capable of being someone else’s employee. They’re not turning out critically thinking citizens.

Look at any comparison of home schooled kids vs. public school kids. The home school kids blow them away every time. Also, consider that prior to the 20th century, many kids didn’t get much, if any, official school. The bible was most students’ only text book and all grades learned together. The older kids taught the younger kids and tutored them, reinforcing their own learning.

Your average 6th grader 100 years ago would easily beat the pants off most adults today, since they were frequently taught Latin, history, politics, philosophy, algebra, etc where today we’re still being pampered til’ freshman year in college.

Think about it. In the old days, we had a higher literacy than today with free education for all. Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer. For a long time, most physicians and lawyers were self-taught and studied or worked for more experienced professionals before going into private practice. Franklin was self-taught, as were most of the Founders.

Interestingly, kids were believed to be capable of doing anything adults did until fairly recently. Look at Admiral Farragut, as just one example. He was commissioned a midshipman in the US Navy at age 10! (Watch Master and Commander and note the young officers who are about 12-15 years old on the British ship and in charge of sailors several times their age.) At age 12, he was put in command of a British prize ship and sailed her back to the US. Read what Gatto has to say and consider how similar his description of education tracks with your own experience.

I wonder if perhaps the big secret of education is it is really there to kill kids’ interest in learning and keep them willfully ignorant? We offer education free to all and we have fewer literate people than we did a hundred years ago. To me, in the 21st century, there can be no excuse for being illiterate.

Publius

I attended public school. When I entered college I decded against being a teacher because my experience of public school was that it was designed to fail everyone by intention. Education means to lead out of darkness, and in these United States the factory method of teching entails alarms bells and class periods and texts out of date by years. Crowded classrooms and psychopathic children fed wonder bread and wonder drugs. I left public education and entered public colleges in 1974 and despite many temptations for the seemingly high status job of teacher, have never looked back in joy and hve regarded schools as holding pens at best.

xander cross

Some of these kids are indeed trouble makers and yes, they are in gangs. Black, White, Hispanic, they are in gangs and are selling drugs in the school system. So, I do agree with some of the security measures. I know this first and my wife is a teacher at these schools where drug dealing is common. I blame the parents, but then again, how are the kids are being rasied if the parents have to work two or three jobs just to put food on the table and to pay the bills. This is an eugenics plan by design. Some of these kids are indeed mentally challenged, their parents be on crystal meth, and crack cocaine.

http://www.placeofrefuge2012.com Sheila

We have two home schooled children in our family, both graduated HS by the time they were 13.

They do not have all the BS mind control installed in them.

But when I see suburban HS grads they do seem to be ready to live the prison planet lifestyle.

AWESOME video! I am so thankful that I homeschool and I pray everyday that people will wake up and quit handing their children over to the public school system. I truly believe this has absolutely led to the downfall of our society. We allow government officials and teachers so much unwarranted authority over our lives. And they are destroying us!

mondobeyondo

I miss high school. High school the way it used to be.

Asking my English teacher for a pass to use the restroom, then trying to dodge the hall monitor who’d always try to stop you and ask where you were going.

The occasional food fight in the lunchroom. (Food fights were courtesy of the movie “Animal House”… John Belushi..1978. You’d have to watch it to understand. I’m sure it’s on DVD.)

Hanging out with my girlfriend after the Friday night football game, and then going to the nearby ice cream parlor.

I’ve heard high school in 2011 is a little different than it was in 1981. How sad.

mondobeyondo

Re: Item #12….

To quote a portion of the linked article,
“…she found out that the high school principal, Howard Fore, had placed the camera in the bathroom to catch vandals.”

What the hell?!? What kind of sick perversion is this? Nothing like catching a nearly naked vandal sitting on a toilet, huh? And besides, it is illegal to place cameras in public restrooms…isn’t it??

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

The school in Pennsylvania only recorded images of those who “stole” the computers. Certain students did not agree to the policies the school outlined to take the laptops which were school property home. The same family that sued the school has had at least 8 other frivolous law suits. Thanks for telling the “truth.”

get YOUR facts straight

the computers were school issued computers and the cameras were used to make sure nobody did anything illegal. The problem came when some kid was eating Mike & Ikes or somthing and the school thought that he was doing drugs. So when the kid got in trouble the school thought that they could take care of the problem. However they had to use the photos as evidence that the kid was doing drugs. invasion of privacy by the school through these computers is horrific especially when they are spying on the kids off campus. o and certain students who did not agree doesnt add up to over 60,000 photos. u dont need that many pictures of a few kids to figure out who they are. OBVIOUSLY U AINT FROM THE AREA, my home, my school, my town, hop off

http://www.homeiswhereyoustartfrom.com Jenn @ Home is Where You Start From

glad to be homeschooling, it was bad enough when I was in school…

Allen

Dumbed down military-style schools, yet another violation of our rights. Add it to the list of gov’t violations of our rights:
They violate the 1st Amendment by placing protesters in cages, banning books like “America Deceived II” and censoring the internet.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns.
They violate the 4th and 5th Amendment by molesting airline passengers.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting undeclared wars for foreign countries.
Impeach Obama, vote for Ron Paul.
(Last link of Banned Book):http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000190526

Ray

I really want to home school my kids…

Alicia

If you cannot homeschool you can still make a difference! Stay involved with your child’s education – YOU are their advocate. Encourage communication with the teachers, volunteer in anyway you can. It can be tough if you work outside the home – but your child is worth it. Encourage learning at home every chance you get. Spend time as a family. Talk at the dinner table. Make sure your child knows they can talk with you about anything…they only learn that through interaction and example. You can instill values in your child that can withstand the peer pressure and downward spiral of society. You CAN make a difference – and your child is worth every bit of time you can spare!

El Pollo de Oro

The ironic thing is that as The Banana Republic of America (the Third World horror movie that used to be the United States) becomes more and more of a police state (just as Alex Jones, Gerald Celente and Naomi Wolf have been predicting), it will also become increasingly violent, increasingly dangerous, and increasingly dysfunctional. This is by design. The corporatist/globalist neocon NWO ruling class (The White Shoe Boys, as Celente calls them) want Americans to be scared out of their wits because a frightened population will be a docile, passive, subservient population. In other words: “if you want us to protect you from those tattooed thugs and hoodlums in baggy pants and hoodies, you’d better not question the ruling class—and you’d better not complain when we offer you slave wages in the sweatshop.” Fear is an excellent control mechanism.

To quote Alex Jones: “we are in deep tyranny…….deep, deep, deep.” God help the collapsing, rotting, decaying Roman Empire that is The Banana Republic of America (formerly the USA).

A.S.

It is definitely illegal to place cameras in bathrooms. Even minors have rights in this area. Everyone involved in this gross injustice needs to put away in prison for child pornography.

I am also appalled at anyone getting suspended and ordered to a psychological evaluation, let alone a little boy or girl, for drawing a picture of Jesus on the cross. I bet if it were a picture of a Muslim burning a U.S. flag nothing would be done!!!

Everyone involved in causing any pain or even the loss of a bit of freedom to children in these examples (as well as other instances that are going on) need to arrested, tried, and convicted. Children can’t be children anymore. Their innocence and playfree days are robbed away to the whims of evil, despicable, irresponsible adults.

And to think…our new First Lady actually said, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.” (HUH!?!). Well, for the first time in my WHOLE LIFE, I AM ASHAMED OF MY COUNTRY!!! G-D Help Us!

Ser Korz

Anal mental disease growing as a cancer .

starviego

These police state measures got a big boost as a result of the Columbine massacre of 1999. Yet that event was itself a covert op. There were more shooters than the two the media talks about. Details:

Great article. This reminds me of the “School Is A Prison” video from youtube.

-rj

http://www.pathtoasia.com rhea

The geographic and/or political boundaries of America may be identified, defined and enforced only by those in authority. And now, it even has extended to public schools, and students no longer have the freedom to express their selves. America needs leaders who are intelligent and educated enough to clean the system and know how to create jobs instead of giving excuses and not watching their students from a box.

Public school today is worse than nothing. Not just worse than home schooling; those kids win all the spelling bees and other contests. No. Public school today is worse than NO EDUCATION AT ALL.

http://www.mryansrants.blogspot.com marianne ryan

A lot of sheeple here are complaining about the teens behavior. And when it’s appropriate, the trouble makers need to get a lesson from it. Being arrested is more then outrageous however. Plus, the points made here are not the troubled children, for instance how about the honor roll student? Or the person drawing Jesus on the Cross. I highly doubt these types of children are creating the problems. The one’s who are creating the problems AREN’T getting arrested. What’s happening is ‘they’ are sending a message that this is now a Police State, it’s a Government run country with dictatorship. Which means you eat when you’re told, you pee when your told, you speak when your told. Not a minute before. Period. If you are too blind to see that in these articles, then you deserve what you get. In the meantime, I will continue to fight for my rights, and anything happens to my children, it will go viral. And maybe one day you sheeple will see the light. If it’s not too late for you. Because the one world demonic government, one world demonic demonic religion, and the Anti-Christ are at the door. And the sheeple will be bowing to it. It’ll be so perfect sounding. But, your the one’s who will pay big time in the end. With your souls.

http://www.tzm-chichester.blogspot.com Mike

Hey guys instead of screaming at each other, why don’t we become inspired to learn more about what’s really behind this behaviour. I really recommend the work of Gabor Maté, Robert Sapolsky and Alfie Kohn (last one particularly good). Mate wrote a book with Gordon Neufield called ‘Hold onto your kids’ and whilst I don’t agree with how focused he is on the point of peer orientation, he’s rightly raised a rarely discussed topic – that children raise each other today, not the parents.

I’m halfway through the book, so far it’s failed to touch on ‘what if parents are genuinely incapable of parenting’ but it might – it has spoken a lot about the necessesity for strong attachment with parents and family, something extremely lacking in our globalized culture, for many reasons. There are many other aspects to the healthy development of human beings – but the environment in which we are raised is by far and large the most critical, and a self perpetuating one at that.

History laughs…

Education?

When did this word become so twisted…

In the past all it took was some reading and one could go from simple log cabin boy to President of the US understanding all aspects of international law (Abraham Lincoln)

It isn’t that complicated…due to reading, I am now the one teaching my father and not the other way around

The ONLY truly intelligent people on the planet took their “education” into their own hands….who forced Newton, Einstein, Edison to draw out the brilliance from underneath….

If anything…school stands in the way of great thought…by encouraging lazy thought and absolutely destroying any creative thought….why learn when you are expected to be merely a parrot…parrots dont have to think…just mimic

Knowing a little useless info DOES NOT EQUAL A GOOD “EDUCATION”!

mondobeyondo

I’ve gotten much more of an education through life experience, than I ever did through a high school or college course.

Yup, I learned the Pythagorean theorem (A squared plus B squared equals C squared). But it doesn’t help me balance my checkbook. They didn’t teach me that part. And now I’m in debt. Help me, Pythagoras!!

Guido

Precisely, Sir! I never learned as much in class as I did on my own reading and doing things. I’ve done more things, gone more places, interacted with more cultures, and none of what I learned was covered in a classroom or a text book.

The most cultured, interesting professor I had was a former Cold War DIA Agent/Congolese merc vet. HE could tell you a few things. The quaking libtard professors in most of my classes could only frost your butt with PC generalities.

Our greatest minds weren’t made in public schools.

I once met a master welder from NC. He had started as an educated apprentice to an old unlettered Southern master welder who learned everything the hard way.

When a job came their way, the younger guy would break out his pad and pencil and start figuring dimensions and material needed.

The old timer would just go to work. One day, while working out a job calling for some round pieces, the old timer asked him, “Boy, why you always ciphering?” “I’m using Pi to figure the area of a circle,” the young welder replies. The old timer, pinching thumb and forefinger together, replies, “Boy, all you need to know to work out a circle is it’s 3 and just a little bit more!”

I was raised doing lots of things with my dad. We spent a lot of hours working on various projects together. I’ve been shocked when I met guys my age who never used a screwdriver or a hammer.

You know something else? I suspect we don’t burden our kids with enough responsibilities. I think the challenge of having to do things, like adults do, helps develop kids. I once read that in Africa, it wasn’t uncommon to have a kid turn 4 years old and have him out in a field herding sheep or goats. Admiral Farragut, as I referenced above, was placed in command of a ship when he should have been sitting in 6th grade, bored out of his mind. What would he have been like if society had forced him to wait until he was 21 years old before he was trusted with any form of responsibility?

paulie

18 years of education is only to teach kids to obey the IRS, and be able to fil out a 1099.

homeedmomma

So THANKFUL we choose to home educate…NOT home school! Why would I want to ‘school’ my 5 children and squash their imagination & intelligence? The school system wants to create more followers…’dumb sheep’ that follow. I want to raise up George Washingtons, Ben Franklins, Thomas Jeffersons…they started revolutions! I’m raising up godly men & women to make a difference in this world!!

Derek

Homeschool…?

rose

Re the 13 parents ticketed for cheering at a high school graduation, they should have been thrown out on their asses, not ticketed. My older daughter’s h.s. graduation ceremony was disrupted by imbecilic parents whooping and hollering every five minutes. One moron dad was practically right into my own elderly parents’ ears. Maybe this was the first in his family to ever graduate high school? I don’t know, but I was ready to call the cops on them myself.

goonda

A Perfect Example- of a New World Order. Wake up buttholes. things are changing

Rose

I am entering my 21st year as a teacher. I teach in a public school in PA. Although public schools have significant problems that was not the case even ten years ago, and yes, we do have cameras in the hallways, I cannot say that control of students is replacing their education. When the late bell rings, students at my school are in class and ready to learn. Yes, we have had drug checks, but I cannot say that I am regularly challenged to teach stoned teenagers. Yes, we have had food-fights, but I have never seen a student pull weapon out, have not seen “sex in the restrooms” as one poster indicated, and have NEVER had a violent incident in my classroom. I find my students to be generally respectful and interested in learning. My job is challenging (I teach junior and senior English), but I truly enjoy being a public school teacher. Yes, some districts have made some grave mistakes in misinterpreting “no tolerance” policies, and that is what I think the author is upset about. But he paints a horrific picture of public schools that in my experience (and I have taught in three of them in both PA and LA), is over-the-top negative, one-sided, and lacks field experience. I am curious to know if this author has spent any recent time in a public school. I can guarantee that if he does, he will find the challenges of running these schools significantly different from the one in which he may have graduated from. At the same time, he would also find a number of teenagers who admit that they like their schools and feel at home there. Some of my students would rather be at school than at home. There are a number of reasons for this, and perhaps that something he should take some time to be concerned with. He may envision the modern public school as a prison; however, some of these students view these “prisons” as “safe-havens” compared to the environment they walk into at home.

Bill

Rose: No wonder we’re producing illiterate high school graduates, if they have ENGLISH TEACHERS like you.
Some of your sentences are un-understandable?!?! Two of your sentences end in prepositions. You wrote more than 15 sentences WITHOUT a paragraph. ?? English Teacher ??

Maah!

Nobody wants to be in prison, nor have their children in prison, so why is everybody so ‘fine’ with living in the material world prison of birth, death, old age and disease, suffering constant disturbances created by our own selves, others and nature’s disasters? Sure, there are moments of relief which are conventionally interpreted as happiness but such moments are finate and temporary and only serve to perpetrate the illusion of our prison life being ‘fine’. Real life is free life. Education means to teach children the science of extracting oneself from the prison of the material world. Everything else is secondary. The current educational system is a slaughterhouse for the soul.

http://www.familyonbikes.org Nancy @Family on Bikes

I am POSITIVE there is more to the stories than what was written there. Yes, there are problems in the schools, but I still believe the schools are a great option for the vast majority of kids and I believe they are doing a fantastic job given the constraints that are placed upon them.

We found a program here in Idaho that is absolutely fantastic – no ifs, ands, or buts. It’s a hands-on math/science program that can teach our kids way more than we could. Yes, my husband is a math/science teacher (I’m also a long time teacher) and he could be teaching those classes – but there is no way we can buy the equipment for only two kids. The school can invest in a wide variety of materials because they know they will have lots of kids using them every day. We have only two.

I wish there could be a better balance in reporting – show us the bad, but also show us the good. And there is a lot of good.

http://www.homeschoollearning.com.au Life Learning

Many people don’t seem to be aware that they have a choice. Home Education is a legal and valid education choice.

At no other time in ones life are we subjected to being with a large group of people the same age as us and told what to think and do all day.

As a parent I am concerned that some parents knowingly send stressed and bullied children to school against their will. I wish more parents felt empowered to make their own educational choices as a family.

( I understand there are some really good things happening out there also. It’s when people know there are problems and don’t see a way out I’m sadend.)

Lotus Blossom

My mother was once bitten very badly on her arm by a kindergarten boy in her class. She was trying to help him out from under his desk because students can get hurt if the desk falls on them…so she had to let him pitch a bitch fit on the floor and it turns out the parents were pothead cocaine-sucking alcoholic satanists…the father showed up drunk, the mom stoned, they both didnt care about the situation and the dad had a bad attitude. So because of the FAIL PARENTS and the slurred messages of mainstream media, yes, some of these little darlings are messed up, and are risky…and this also results in scary militant school grounds…

http://basspig.wordpress.com Mark W

This kind of travesty can only be born out of the travesty of property taxes. Legalize home ownership and eliminate public indoctrination centers. This whole situation is the work of the left-wing NEA, teachers unions and government officials.
Taxation, and the things it funds, are fundamentally immoral.

woodstockandsnoopy

I think a huge part of the problem would be solved if we stopped insisted on compulsory education. I know we want an educated population, but I think the teachers would be a lot happier if their students wanted to learn something rather than waste time.

It really makes me sad that so many people take a public education for granted. A lot of people in this country had to fight for minorities and women to be educated in the same way as white men. It’s really an embarrassment.

Do your research

Sorry — don’t buy most of these. They sound exactly like parent or media exagerration. The parent would SAY the child was punished for writing on a desk, but it would turn out to be the 25th offense of the year, with most of the others involving violence.

The kids fined for swearing in the classroom, with extra charges added on? Betcha the kid terrorized teachers and other students for months and finally yelled out some kind of violent, profane threat. Then she and her parents agreed it wasn’t “fair” and that they weren’t going to pay.

Checking kids’ laptops and phones? Do you know how many kids would sit and look at porn without schools monitoring?

Good site, but you’re all wrong on this one. Schools are not disciplined ENOUGH. I’ve taught for years, and I can tell ya, especially in the inner cities, it’s a mess.

Girls dress like hookers, boys act like thugs, teachers are threatened, good kids have their lives made hellish, and finding guns on kids is common. And every time, you have a parent saying, “He’s a good boy! That teacher ain’t fair!” Administrators come down on teachers and always side with parents. And all reaction must be “positive.”

Come on. You can’t fool an old teacher. Especially not one who is unemployed because she instituted a classroom management plan (with consequences!) at her last school.

Eric

I couldn’t stand it back in 1996 I’m sure it would drive me crazy now. Used to sneak around blockades and carry fake hall passes.

Squee

This topic is far too complex to really get at through an enumeration of disciplinarian conduct in this one form of Bureaucracy. We live in a society where bureaucratic, if not outright totalitarian institutions intervene in our lives on a daily basis. When there is a general technological development (like CCTV or GPS surveillance – or to go back quite some time, Bentham’s Panopticon), it isn’t usually incorporated into only one of these institutions. A new and improved technique for controlling behavior (psychotherapy, technological surveillance, disciplinarian punishment, torture, etc.) will find its way into the Military, the Prison, the School, the Workplace, the Home, and such. Just because the role of the School is education for one reason or another doesn’t mean that it will have better or different methods for dealing with non-compliance, breaking rules (even if the rules are specific to the role), and all that. Bad grades, slacking on the job, lying on tax returns, sneaking contraband into your cell (or country), negatively effecting the mission of your team… it doesn’t matter. We tend to have primary methods of making a broke part of a system work. Unfortunately, we are going through a time where there is a lot of incentive to break rules so the institutions have to crack down harder to save themselves (and those who work for them, to save their primary source of income – to survive). It’s one of those times when a society really starts to eat itself.

Wallenstein

I agree with Do your research.

Students in public schools are rarely held accountable for their actions. The districts are supposedly afraid of lawsuits, so discipline is lax or non-existant. And how hard would it be for the State to pass a law that makes school districts immune to lawsuits? Where are the lobbyists to work on behalf of the school districts??

School administrators always blame the teacher for academic performance or discipline problems. How easy is it for a school administrator to hide in an office while earning almost 2x the salary of a teacher. It would be ideal if all administrators would be forced to teach at least part-time. If this were to happen, the “It’s the teacher’s fault” game would stop immediately.

Why do public high schools hire a full time police officer. I understand the need for security if such a school is dominated by gangs that pose a danger to the safety and well-being of others, but what purpose does a police officer serve in a safe and boring suburb or farm town.

What are the duties of a high school police officer. Does a school NEED an assistant principal any longer to enforce school discipline policies. Will school discipline policies be replaced by cops and the accompanying brutal enforcement of criminal law?

A dedicated article regarding the roles of a school police officer is badly needed on this website.

GoFigure

When “students” (inmates) are treated like semi-retarded, trouble makers from a young age, they start to believe it. If the faculty at an institution treated you like an animal… regardless of how you acted — would YOU rebel… or just do what you were told to do?

The trash that they teach these days is comical. Minimum amounts of English, Science and Math are taught… with no way to apply them to anything in the real world. The bulk of the “teaching” is just the same politically correct propaganda that you can see on day time T.V. When is comes to applying anything over basic language or math skills to the workplace — good luck. THIRTEEN YEARS (from K to G12) are required to graduate from high school and in the end… basic language and math are about the only things that anyone actually uses.

The fact is, that students who want to do anything besides “busy work” during their THIRTEEN YEARS of “learning” (like maybe LEARN something that they can use in real life) are disciplined and taught to not think so much.

Demonstrating any kind of free thought is worse than shooting Heroin in the bathroom. People who ask questions about anything are always singled out and labeled as a threat. Nothing makes a teacher look dumber than a student who keeps asking common sense questions that completely contradict every BS word that spews from their mouth.

Teachers and professors these days are generally the DUMBEST and most GULLIBLE types of people around. They got through school by doing what they were told and by NEVER asking any relevant questions. They generally believe EVERY SINGLE WORD in their text books and spread it to their students like a virus. They are the ones who never had enough curiosity to look into anything for themselves or actually check into the facts behind anything. They were taught to pick up a book, crap it out onto a paper and go their way. Then they actually think that they KNOW enough to teach other people about it — because they read a book all about it and are “officially certified”.

REGURGITATE OR ELSE. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE EVERY WORD THEN YOU ARE A TROUBLE MAKER. QUESTION MY COMICAL VERSION OF REALITY AND I WILL GIVE YOU AN F.

I was able to figure out long ago that the school system is their to make people “HATE TO LEARN”. Break the cattle of the habit of thinking for themselves. Make “learning” so tedious and painful that they will never want to learn anything again. Every time a free though starts to form — BEAT IT DOWN. When… IF they ever make it out of their THIRTEEN YEARS of HELL, be sure that they leave with only enough basic skills to work at Wal-Mart or McDonalds. If we teach them any more, they could start asking too many questions and cause trouble.

The system is just creating two different types of “people”:

-Inmates
-Guards

The mentality between the two is about as close at two things could be in this world. Neither of the two have much interest in learning anything. The one’s who learn to keep their mouths shut and do what they are told will be the guards. The one’s who still has a tiny piece of a soul left will be punished for not conforming and take on the role of the inmate. Kind of like… I dunno, a “Prison Planet” maybe? Ya’ Think?

michael

I am 12 and attend public middle school. All of the things talked about in this article is spot on. One of my own stories one of my friends found a piece of burning toilet paper. He put it out with water then told his teacher. 20 minutes later he was called into the office. his backpack was searched and he was given a full pat down he had to remove his belt and hat. the searched happened in front of about 10 school administrators with out his or his parents consent.

http://www.forcedschool.com Forced School

Michael: I highly recommend you read John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education. You can read it online on his site. It will help you understand the why you are forced to endure this monstrous unconstitutional system. It has everything to do with control and little to do with true education and developing the life of the mind.

Michael

Thanks for the tip!

Michael

NesutDrChenziRa

As serious as this is…when will the folks on top get the message? Fascism is for real and the ruling class knows why they have never sent their children to the schools they have administrative oversight within…Professor Gatto and many others including Neely Fuller shared the truth on this ions ago….Why don’t they just give our families the $7000plus per child so we may educate them ourselves….Everyone should stop registering for their prison schools and make them pay…sue them and make them pay right away….
More on this in another venue

Amy

ha, school, thats a good one. i live in an 80 percent asian community, the kids in my publis school are nerds, and studying is all they do. then there are the few of us people where academics isn’t our forte, and really sort of fail because we can’t keep up with the calculus or physics or whatever they do. in class, i wasn’t listening. I gave up academics and now go to art school. i drew gay porn for money online all throughout middle and high school and you say kids can get suspended for drawing guns? i draw the gun being fired. it all depends on what schools you go to, one in a poorer community or one next to the apple headquarters where all the parents are loaded and the kids have no idea what the meaning of poverty is. Of course there are still drugs, alcohol and sex going on, but those kids do that on the weekend and come back to school to ace their AP physics tests, so really, whats the harm in letting them have some fun? its not like they won’t do it in college.

Michael mike

treating these kids like felons and criminals is clearly not working… the more one tries to control a child or young adult the more he or she will rebel and act uncivilized. We can also blame the media for having these kid act so wild. Look what is portrayed on television, sex appeal, violence, and a whole bunch of shit that seems to dumb these kids down…I don’t know a solution for this, but giving out tickets and arresting young people is clearly not a positive approach.

Steve & Myrlita

I can attest to this. When I was in school (Grad 1977), Yes, you went through tough times but most still wanted to learn and learn well. At that time, spelling & grammar counted. If you couldn’t do at least the basics, you did NOT get promoted or graduate. If you wanted it, you earned it. My son when he was 17 showed me a paper he wrote and his spelling, punctuation and grammar was at at 4th grade level if that and yet he graduated! Yes, the schools are dumbing it down. Why? The no child left behind act. Schools are no longer permitted to fail you because it might hurt their self esteem. (Give me a break). I taught college last year here in The Philippines and it’s worse. Here, kids are taught to just memorize and do as you’re told. They have no idea about independent analytical thinking. If the situation goes outside what they’re taught, they’re almost helpless. I actually spent 2 whole days with them on this. Did it help them, time will tell. I agree with a previous poster, the Anti-Christ is here and if we don’t watch out, God help us. As for no discipline today,that’s easy. It’s not all the parents fault. It started in the early 80s when the govt decided that they knew what was best and not the parents and passed laws putting parents in jail for even thinking on disciplining them and violating their rights to do as they please. I said then that if that continues, they won’t be able to build prisons fast enough. God Bless….Steve

Gabby Spare

Actually, the U.S. education system is currently so bad that’s it’s behind Slovenia’s. You probably don’t notice it because you’re living it as a teenager, but the public schools we go to are indeed very restrictive compared to other countries. In fact, the article is telling the truth, students have little to no rights in school, and are never given the benefit of the doubt even though we are entitled to it. The reason high schoolers are so immature, irresponsible, and stupid at making decisions is because of the authoritative oppression used to control students. As kids, we’re just a reenactment of our parents and society aka school

Erinn

I will speak from the perspective of a graduate of an under preforming high school (3 years out, and in college).

While truthfully, many students do come to the schools and commit heinous actions such as sex on school grounds, selling and usage of drugs, bringing weapons, and using fowl language, the vast majority of students are actually innocent. Many of the faculty and the states that control school funding and policy, have become paranoid and have been bombarded by parents and officials with threats and their nonsupport if they do not change those things. So what do the schools do? They enforce these policies as a prevention method. No student is excluded. Also, these people do not understand the generation at hand, and do not attempt to identify other effects that may be influencing bad behavior. They simply attempt to fix it by placing more restrictions on the students, the very restrictions that cause rebelliousness and failure. In the particular high school that I attended, our school was more focused on dress code than actual education. Only those students that were seen as “gifted with natural book smarts” were focused on, and then even after them, those students that were more popular and outgoing, and then out of those, usually white students. Minority students, average students, and underachievers were left out of this loop. If you ask me, those students need more support because they need the most help, and with those groups being the majority of a school’s population on average, it’s no wonder schools seem to be under-preforming, and all this craziness is happening. I was one of those minority, overachieving students who didn’t stand out much. At one point, my school declared that wearing head bands, earrings, and purposefully color coordinated bracelets and such were indicative of gang activity. I wore a black head band with white polka dots and was cited immediately for it. The teacher didn’t do too much, but reminded me of the policy that we were no longer allowed to wear them, or we faced possible suspension. SUSPENSION OVER A HEADBAND??? Since when had i been a problem child, and what reason did I have to be in a gang? I was astonished. Apparently so were other students and parents, as the rule was abolished soon afterward. Students are not being prepared for college properly. They are told they can underachieve and are being walked along by the hand like children, so they get to college, are overwhelmed by freedoms they’ve never had, and flunk out…I’ll be graduating in a semester from college. I refused to be that way, but not all students have the support necessary to reach this point. I fear what my 1 year old daughter will be subjected to in school when she arrives at that age.

heather

Erinn,
I’m a bit older than you from what I gather, but my story is almost the same. I opted out of the school system entirely and decided to homeschool my two girls. It’s been hard, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I can’t afford private school and where I live, public school is simply not an option – it’s a terrible school district.
Now, 16 years later: My oldest daughter, 16, has already been accepted to college (not that she’s going, but it was nice to know she was recognized by the college) and my 14 year old is working professionaly in the field she wants to go into. I honestly do not think that my children would have had these opportunities if they had attended our local public school.
It was worth the sacrifices and I’m happy with the way my kids turned out!
Good luck to you – you sound like a very sincere woman.

debow

Well crime in public schools is high. Morals in the USA are low. Public schools lowered the standards, so the people of color can pass. While doing this we are now not even in the top 20 in the world in education.Parents let their children have more rights and make their own choices.We socially promote students instead of letting them earn the right to go on in school to the next gread. The work ethic is low in the USA. Drugs are used by more Americans then any other country and parents are usually the teachers of drug use, now we wonder why we have a poor society. Stupid parents raise stupid kids.

what?!

You really don’t understand how bad it has become unless you are a student as well. I have a little brother who is in third grade, he never gets into any trouble and makes very good grades. At this public school he goes to you are required to wear a uniform every day. A few months ago, he gets on the bus with his uniform (white shirt, navy pants, his hair is combed back just like always) the only difference is his pants. They have an elastic waistband and fit him perfectly so it didn’t even occur to me to put a belt on him. A few hours later the school called because he was sent to the office and can no longer stay at school. I come in and he is crying. They start barking at me that he has violated school policy by ignoring the dress code. How? He is not wearing a belt. He thought he had done something wrong and was crying his eyes out the rest of the day.

Kelsey

At my school we are required to wear IDs, we have hallsweeps, they have electronic scanners for the IDS, walls are all white with an exception of a few posters. We were being forced to take a survey that “supports” our school. Food is crap, government regulated. I almost got a trespassing ticket for returning to school from a release. They hired more security…we have balconies…they closed them off…I truly feel like a prisoner, i hate going to school cause of that… my friend got in trouble for having a rebel flag. As a student this makes me sick to my stomach… I wish that more parents will open their eyes and listen to their kids when they talk about school being prison…cause its ****** true! sorry bout my language i had to let it out -_-

http://Gmail.com Rosita

wow im from spain i moved here and school is HELL here i mean cameras in bathrooms thats WRONG do you want some perv to wake you child release whats in thier bowl systems?! I dont think so if you kid is doing wrong things you need to tell them whats okay and whats not okay from them and for the school so that they can know and extremists who think that is okay really need to wake up because kids are dropping out because they hate thier school it doesnt matter if its a big city or a little one its the same children,teens should not be treated like prisoners at all.

TwinPinesMall1985

Number 5? Okay, those guys have gone too far.

Ancient Veritas

They want you to eat their GMO foods.

Jonathan Munoz

I’m glad to be out of high school. they treated special education kids like myself like nobody’s. The teachers always looked down on us; especially if we had good grades they tried to put us down. There is no respect for students in our school system. There should be an education reform were there is more funding for education. Also there should be a redesign of the schools were it should look more like a college campus than like a prison. Also the kids should be able to choose the food they want to eat rather than what the government wants us to eat. they should also have longer lunch breaks and more recess time. Also they should be able to chose the classes they want to take and not mandatory classes. All of the kids should be able to chose their classes including special education children. We may require more assistance to learn but we are not stupid!!!

Ihateramage

Schools give kids no rights. I would know. I’m in school still in Arkansas. Some of the teachers send you to detention for no reason. Ramage for example you guys at NHJH.

Bruce Wyner

Does this surprise anyone my sister is a princibal her husband is a teacher and both are diehard liberals, and I don, t think theirs a public school system in the U.S that isn, t run by democratic socialist liberals, and these teachers go to universities that are taught by extreme leftist proffesors.a couple of years ago one of the ivy league schools can, t remember which one, had the lunatic president of Iran as a key note speaker.America is called a melting pot well guess what , America is Rome and it, s burning in the pot.We have a president that adverises food stamps in Mexico to intice the beaners to come on overand they are in record numbers , the liberals will say Obama has deported more illegals than any other president but it, s a bold face lie just like Obama care, I, m convinced the only truth Obama has ever told is that he was going to fundamentally change America and he has.The suffering has just began because now we have a lame duck president that made one more promise I, m sure he will keep, to bypass congress and push through his radical agenda and end the greatest country ever.After all the U.S constitution is just an out dated piece of history written by a bunch of rascist white guys.America was a great experiment that produced the tichest country in the history of the world but I guess that wasn, t good enough.